Today we are taking the next step for Enterprise Voice and announcing that Direct Routing will be joining Calling Plans as one of the options customers will have for Calling in Microsoft Teams.

We are targeting the end of Q2-2018 for general availability of this capability. To access the Direct Routing capability, customers will need to have Microsoft Teams and Phone System as part of Office 365.

What is Direct Routing?

Direct Routing is a capability of Phone System in Office 365 to help customers connect their SIP trunks to Microsoft Teams. In the simplest deployment model, customers start with SIP trunks from their telecommunications provider. Next, customers will use and configure a supported Session Border Controller (SBC) from one of our certified partners. Finally, they will connect their SBC to Microsoft Teams and Phone System.

Besides the primary Direct Routing scenario, we anticipate customers will want to use this capability to integrate with other 3rd party voice applications. There are several additional scenarios:

Easy Transition to Calling in Teams. By integrating with an existing PBX, pilot users can be moved to Calling in Teams while users remain on their legacy PBX. Eventually all users can be easily transitioned to Calling in Teams. The call traffic between these users during the transition stay within the organization.

Telephony System Inter/Op. While users are being transitioned to Calling in Teams, Call Center agents can continue to use their application. Direct Routing enables both use cases to coexist. The call traffic between call center agents and Teams users stay within the organization.

Support for Analog Devices. If an organization decides to move to Calling in Teams but has analog devices such as elevator phones or overhead pagers, these devices can be connected to Teams and Phone System via Direct Routing. Call traffic between analog devices and Teams users stay within the organization.

Microsoft will certify select SBC vendors to insure they are compatible with our Direct Routing guidelines. We will start with AudioCodes, Ribbon Communications, and ThinkTel. Our plan is to continue to evaluate SBC vendors and certify as needed.

It’s important to note that Direct Routing is designed to work with Microsoft Teams. Customers using Skype for Business Online should continue to use Cloud Connector Edition (CCE) or connect via or a on-premises SFB Pool for their SIP trunk connection needs.

Getting started with Calling in Teams

If you are new to Teams, please review our quick start guide. We also invite you to mark your calendars for March 22 for a Teams on Air episode with guest Nikolay Muravlyannikov, Sr. Program Manager where he will discuss Direct Routing in more detail.

UPDATE - Our apologies - the timing for the Teams on Air episode is actually scheduled for March 29 @ 9 AM PT.

Hi @Patrick Yore the CCE is still stays the solution to bring your carrier for SFBO users. Direct Routing works with Teams only. However, there is a clear migration path. If you use a supported SBC (AudioCodes or Ribbon) with the CCE you can pair the same SBC, which is paired to CCE, to the Teams backend and migrate users from SFBO to Teams. It is a matter deploying Teams client and changing the voice routing on SBC and in our Cloud. Once all users migrated you can decommission the CCE.

@Святослав Терлецький you'll need a supported SBC, and my guess is you won't see a Cisco one (you never know though!). This would mean that you would need a supported SBC to allow interworking between CUCM and MS Teams.

FWIW @Venkat Kantamneni I believe the SBC announcement you are referring to is just for using SBC's to connect an existing telephony system to Exchange UM and should have no bearing on the announced Teams functionality.

Will this allow for inserting an SBC in the native path (not talking about going to the PSTN or other external systems, but within the native client to server path) to perform B2BUA functions and break and inspect the mutually auth traffic between a SfB/Teams client and the SfBO/Teams server within O365?

I am a member of the IT team of a large hospital. We have numerous clinics that we are moving to Teams. A few of them are very attached to their pagers. Will this Direct Routing work with the old school pagers and can it be utilized through teams? I have read the above and I am still a bit unclear on this. Is there any more information available on this that I can take to my supervisors? I have been tasked with finding a solution and I am hoping that this is it.

@Remco van Noorloos, the preview will be public. No signed up needed. You will want to start now on the pre-work: (1) plan with your provider of choice for voice trunks and insure you are using a certified SBC (Ribbon or Audiocodes). There are different options here and it would be good to use the time now to plan.